


In Plain Sight

by Stranger



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, Frivolous kissing, M/M, parlor games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 03:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6036142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stranger/pseuds/Stranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's summer at Brandy Hall, and hobbit tweens (and others) are flirting, courting, looking for love, and playing games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Plain Sight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Hobbit_Smut LJ Community](http://hobbit-smut.livejournal.com/) challenge, "Games Hobbits Play." First posted there, July 2004.  
> Many thanks to betas Postholedigger and [Princess of G](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks) for lovely quick work.  
> It's been edited and expanded slightly from the original version.

"I'm sure you remember Frodo Baggins," said Amber's mother. "My, I'd forgotten how Tookishly attractive he is, for all that he's too thin."

"Where?" said Amber, trying to be subtle about looking all around the crowded room for half-familiar faces.

"Next to Master Saradoc and the sandwiches. Doesn't that sliced pork smell like Lupina still has the kitchen in hand? She has a way with cloves..."

Amber went back to looking at the faces. She saw Frodo, evidently replying to something Great-aunt Menegilda had said, and she remembered him well enough. Unfortunately Frodo was, as anyone but a lass's mother would know, not the marrying kind.

In Brandy Hall's large family parlor with its portraits on the walls and its brightly-tiled fireplace now empty in the warmth of summer, Saradoc and Esmerelda presided over the tea table; over there Zinnia flirted with Doderic, a cousin whom Amber recalled as a hobbledehoy young lad two years ago, now plump and very much a tween.

At the second table, where most of the older tweens in the room were devouring cakes and muffins, Meriadoc made two of his cousins smile as he waved a spoon in descriptive circles. Two chairs there sat empty, but one was filled even as Amber watched by a lass with bouncy, shimmering-dark curls, a cheeky grin, and the Brandybuck nose.

"Who's the new lass at Merry's table?" asked Amber. "The short one with the dark-pink bodice?" The bodice displayed a nicely rounded bosom, acknowledged by Merry's momentary downward flicker of eyes. 

"Goodness, I don't recall her. She seems very friendly with Merry, doesn't she?"

"She has to be a Brandybuck cousin. They look too much alike."

"That might be just as well. Go greet your cousin Merry and speak prettily to the lass. Now I look at her, she's still quite a tween, or she wouldn't have _quite_ so many freckles. Remember that Merry will be of age in a year or two."

"Yes, Mum," said Amber, and refrained from rolling her eyes. She'd never had freckles, and her brown curls were completely ordinary, but she'd had her thirty-fourth birthday this Spring, and Mum had said right out that for the next birthday she wanted a good-son.

She made her way over to the table. Merry leapt to his feet with gratifying familiarity. "Amber, you're here! Mother said you were to visit, and you're just in time. I want to show Calla that trick." The dark-haired lass smiled up with warm brown eyes like cinnamon and a plump-curving pink mouth. 

"It's good to see you too, Merry," said Amber, and, "I'm more than pleased to meet you, Calla." Calla's smile was contagious. Amber smiled back, and knew she wasn't going to look at a lad properly until she'd seen the bottom of that cinnamon glance.

"You haven't met Calla before, have you?" put in Merry, oblivious, and waved his spoon again. "Introduce yourselves."

"I'm Calendula Treebole," said Calla. "My father married a Brandybuck cousin, so I'm a second cousin to half the folk here. Everybody calls me Calla."

"Amber Hill-Burrows," said Amber. "We're from Northfarthing. Something like that happened among the Hillses — marrying with Brandybucks, that is — before ever they allied with the Burrowses." She had her amber-brown eyes from a Hill great-grandfather, her mother said. "It's too far back to count, really, but I claim cousin to this—" she plucked Merry's spoon from his fingers — "piece of mischief anyway." 

Merry opened too-innocent wide eyes at her. "It was you thought up the mischief, as I recall."

"It was you laughed at it."

Calla's eyebrows crinkled in question.

"Oh, this," said Merry to her, took the spoon back, and set about polishing the bowl of it with his thumb. "You'll be amazed."

"I will?" Calla's voice was sweetly husky.

"You will," Amber assured her, as Merry breathed on the spoon and rubbed it again. "If Merry doesn't amaze you, I promise I will." 

"That might be— Merry, you clown!"

Merry, cross-eyed with effort, sat perfectly still, the bowl of the spoon balanced precariously on his nose so the handle hung down over his mouth like the tail of an improbable silver-chased opossum.

"He can't speak," Amber confided to Calla and the wide-eyed lass and lad next to her, now staring at Merry in something bordering alarm. "The spoon will fall off."

Merry glared at her.

"I'm amazed," said Calla. "I'm so amazed I have to try it."

Merry started to grin and the spoon clattered down onto the table beside a plate of fragrant spice-cakes and a dish of butter.

"That's how it goes with adventurous lads," said Amber. "One achieves a brief moment of glory, and then everything tumbles to the ground." 

Calla's eyes laughed at her — at her wit? at her pretension? — but Calla only said, "Can you hang a spoon like that?"

"Yes, indeed. Who do you think taught Merry?"

# # #

The morning saw Amber employed in the kitchens instead of frivolling with cousins young and old. One of the undercooks had had to be sent to Newbury — perhaps even to Stock — for rosewater, after the last bottle of it in the pantry turned up broken. "I'd like another pair of hands for the morning," Brandy Hall's head cook said to Aunt Esmerelda, after announcing the dire loss of one of the few foodstuffs Brandy Hall could not provide for itself.

Esmerelda's eyes went around the long breakfast table of guests and cousins still eating bowls of milk and fruit. "Calla, could you spare the time for Lupina?"

"I'd love to help," said Calla, sounding sincere.

"You're a blessing, child. Thank you."

Amber had a feeling she'd been passed over only because she was a guest, and a new guest at that. "Would Lupina like another helper? I'm at loose ends for the morning."

Calla looked at her, startled for an instant and then quizzical.

"If you're offering, I'm sure Lupina would be grateful." Amber was momentarily aware of an exchange of looks between her mother and Aunt Esmerelda. "Mind she doesn't keep you for the afternoon as well."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Amber, and joined Calla at the doorway, feeling absurdly pleased with herself. "I hope you know the way to the kitchens. I confess I'm curious to see them."

Calla grinned up at her from half a head below Amber's own, rather modest, height. "You want to know how the rose-water came to be broken, don't you?" She led the way down a curving corridor paneled with plain tiles.

"I think I would. You can't tell me it leapt off the shelf on its own."

"It grew legs and ran away!" whispered Calla. 

"That's if it didn't grow wings and fly up to the ceiling like a bird, I'm sure. Perhaps it hadn't practiced landing properly?"

"More likely it's landed in a few too many jugs of rosewater punch," said Calla, prosaic now. "I'm told the bottle was remarkably dry when the pieces were found."

"You were told?"

Calla stopped, glanced down the corridor toward a broad, round doorway that showed firelight and steam, and set her head to one side confidingly. "I heard it somewhere."

"From a kitchen lad or a cousin?"

"A lad can be both. So can a lass." She gave Amber a thoughtful look.

"Like us?"

"If you like," said Calla.

"I could like it," said Amber, unable to stop herself.

"Well," said Calla, as if it meant something, and marched on toward the kitchen doorway.

Lupina set them both to pitting cherries, and then to rolling out pastry crusts for the several dozen — it seemed — pies for the evening's and the next day's tables. As she'd hoped, Amber worked with Calla and whomever else the pastry cook, Bordo Molehill, could find, chattering together as fast as they assembled berry and cherry pies.

"You're new," said a lad, Saronno, who by his looks was a relative of Bordo's. "My dear, judging by your overskirt you're no kitchen-maid, even if you've a sweet hand on the pastry board. Are you from Northfarthing?"

"She is," put in Calla. "She came in yesterday with Mistress Hill-Burrows, her mother."

"Ah, you're one of those." Saronno nodded wisely. "It's the green-thistle dye," he confided. "Northfarthing grows the thistles greener than anywhere else. What brings you to our humble kitchens, Mistress Amber?"

Amber looked around the kitchen — nearly a smial in itself with three fireplaces, a wall of ovens, its own skylights, and two winding pantry tunnels — and back, meaningfully. "This isn't so very humble. It's fit for any lass who wants to meet the hobbits in the Hall." 

"True enough," said Saronno, easing a circle of dough into a pie-pan. "You'll meet a great many, here and there. May I ask if any of the fine lads of the Hall have captured your fancy?"

"Not to speak of." Amber found herself looking at Calla. "Not yet. My mother hopes for it."

"Ah, but do you?" A bowlful of plump cherry-halves cascaded into the dough-lined pan, followed by a shake each of sugar, flour, and ground hazelnuts. Calla seemed to be quite occupied in rolling out the thinner top crusts. Saronno picked up another, even larger and very full, earthenware bowl. "Go ahead and sample these berries, Mistress Amber. There are always more baskets of berries than we know what to do with between Lithe and the proper harvests. Are they fit for a pie?"

"Buckland's fruit is good enough for anyone in the Shire," Amber assured him, and did not neglect to lick berry juice from her fingers, in case Calla was watching. "I've no quarrel with any of the lads, but I'm not sure I want one for my very own, yet."

"Ah, your _mother_ hopes for it," said Saronno.

Calla smiled as she crimped the edges of her latest piece of sliced dough onto the cherries, but when she looked up her expression was all dutiful. "Shall I paint this with egg?"

"Do that, if you will. I think we'll have berries for the next one." He winked at her, outrageous without being truly familiar. "I believe Mistress Amber may have a taste for them."

The flush on Calla's cheeks might have been kitchen-heat, but it was an attractive pink all the same. Amber thought she saw the cinnamon-brown eyes flash in her direction before a small, freckled hand reached for the bowls of fruit and her own longer-boned, paler hands were occupied with dough and flour on the pastry-board again.

# # #

After supper, Merry beckoned Berilac and Zinnia as they left their table-places, which meant that Amaryllis and Doderic followed. He stopped at the visitor's table and asked if Mistress Hill-Burrows would condescend to chaperone and judge a game of Hunt The Thimble for them in the green parlor, to pass the evening.

Mum was more than ready to do it, of course. Just as she was turning to give Amber a glance of command, Merry said, "Won't you join us, Calla?" and Amber stood up too, hoping her mother would think it was Merry's presence that made her eager to play a children's game. 

Mum looked at the group of tweens in the evening lamplight and asked Merry, "Are you playing for kisses?"

Merry took her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles. "As in all things, Mistress Hill-Burrows."

"Oh, my. Please call me Gladia, if you will."

"That will be no hardship, Cousin Gladia." Merry kissed her hand again, with a lingering touch that made Amber blink. Was Merry _flirting_ with her _mother_?

Mum only shook her head at him. "Tween manners!" she said, but she was enjoying herself. Mum finally removed her hand, and said, practically, "Then we'll need another lad, won't we? Would your cousin Frodo care to play?" Perhaps only Amber could read the speculative hope in her eyes.

"Why not? Frodo! Come help me entertain these charming cousins!"

Frodo left off gazing absently at a piece of cheese and ignoring a plate of cherry pie to obey the summons. "You're going to get me in trouble, aren't you, Merry?"

"Not at all. Are you wearing that silver watch-fob Great-uncle Eddemas gave you for his birthday? I've a use for it. We're going to play Hunt The Watch-fob, with kissing." Merry waved all of them toward the door of an adjoining room, a dark oval amid the firelight and lamplight and yellow walls of the dining hall. "Don't go in yet. We'll want more candles lit, I think."

They clustered around the carved-wood frame of the doorway. "I must decline to allow my watch-fob to be used for kissing games," said Frodo, sounding amused. "I have a spare silver button. Will that do?"

"Capital! Frodo's going to hide button first."

Frodo held up a button the size of a penny-piece, stamped with a "B" surrounded by curlicues. "This is it — Berry, look at the _button_. You have to look here, not at Liss, for a moment."

Calla said, sotto voce, "He doesn't have to win a round to kiss her, anyway," and Amber heard Merry chuckle.

"Cousin Gladia, this is the object to be found. Please examine it carefully so that you can confirm that the winner has found the right button."

Merry said, to Calla, "Except that it's Frodo's button, and he might have more like it."

"I heard that, Merry. I will pledge, cousins and friends, not to introduce a second button into the game, nor otherwise to steal any kisses I do not honestly earn." He slid his eyes toward Merry, whose face went tellingly blank.

"Mind you place it in plain sight," said Berilac. "Having to spy it in a mirror doesn't count." 

Calla nudged Amber, her sidelong smile indicating that Berilac was speaking from experience. Zinnia giggled and so did Doderic, and Merry smirked.

Mum gave them a that's-enough look, and they quieted. "The rule in Northfarthing is that the first person to pick up the thimble — the button — wins the round and claims a kiss from the hobbit who placed it. If you say anything about seeing it or show that you know where it is, someone else might be able to pick it up first and win the round."

"Let us, then, play by Northfarthing rules tonight," said Frodo.

Mum smiled, still flirting, and handed the button back to Frodo. "We accept your judgement, sir. Will you consider that you may kiss the chaperone to start the game?"

"Madam, I am honored," said Frodo, and Amber thought her mother enjoyed the moment that followed far too much, even though it was a public-company kiss and nothing more. "Thank you indeed. Now, everyone, wait out here." He disappeared into the green parlor doorway.

Amber saw Calla give her an enigmatic glance, but then Merry picked up Calla's hand and kissed it with a whispered word that made Calla giggle. Doderic looked wistfully at Zinnia's gold-furred feet on the wooden tiles of the dining-hall floor and declaimed, "She walks in beauty, like sunlight..." and trailed off. Zinnia pinkened.

Calla looked at Amber again, with a head-tilt that could mean anything, but it had to mean something. Amber gave a tiny head-tilt back, equally enigmatic but hopeful, and then Frodo was announcing from the doorway, "Come in, everyone. May the best hobbit win — for my sake!"

They filed into the green parlor, which was in fact carpeted in green, yielding under the feet, with the far wall made flat instead of curved, painted with a garden mural. There were upholstered chairs — Mum had claimed one already — and straight chairs and two small tables with lamps, and a sideboard that displayed a tea-set and the remaining five of the six plates great-great aunt Verbena had painted when Great-uncle Rorimac was young enough to have broken one and be spanked for it. Behind it a wooden window, now closed, led to the kitchens. 

Amber had time to look around without worrying, since she wasn't sure she wanted to win the round. If Mum was going to act like a tween around Frodo, she didn't need to do the same. After a few minutes of people peering everywhere and even of Zinnia climbing (unnecessarily, unless you considered that she had obviously put special attention into combing her feet that evening) onto a chair to look at the upper window moldings, Amber heard an "Aha!" from Amaryllis.

Liss held up the button to a babble of surprised voices, collected a hasty congratulatory kiss from Berilac, and marched over to where Frodo sat with Mum for a ceremonial kiss that was more prize than pleasantry.

"It's your turn to hide it in plain sight, dear," said Mum. "Shall we all cover our eyes?"

"Best if we all wait outside again," said Merry, and shooed Zinnia out ahead of him, just as she was evidently persuading Doderic to give her a consolation kiss. Amber noticed that Frodo stayed with Mum and wondered just how much flirting was quite proper between a hobbit-wife with a grown daughter and a bachelor lad who still behaved like a tween.

The second round began with Berilac trying to look everywhere at once faster than anyone else and especially faster than Merry, but it was Calla who plucked the button from beside one of the table-lamps just before Merry reached that table with a purposeful gleam in his eye.

Berilac shook his head, less displeased than he might have been. Merry grinned at Calla. "I'll have to win the next round, won't I, pretty Calla?"

"Don't count your winnings until they've hatched," said Calla. "I might like Liss better, you know."

"But will she like you?" Everyone except Berry laughed, because Liss hadn't looked at another hobbit since a year ago Yule and a now-famous episode in the smaller greenhouse that involved more grapes and grape-leaves and fewer garments every time someone told it.

"We'll see," said Calla, and handed the button to Mum before she seized Amaryllis' hand and brought her to her feet for a showy kiss where Calla took the lead, in spite of Amaryllis being the tallest, roundest lass in the room. 

Amber, watching, thought Liss wasn't exactly protesting but it was still a show and nothing more. What was it for Calla? She'd thought Calla wasn't attached to anyone in particular, not if Merry's half-serious pursuit of her was any indication. Of course, that just meant she wasn't interested in _Merry_ , or wanted him to think she wasn't. Amber decided she'd best not count her winnings before they were hatched — but she was going to win the next round or know the reason why.

The next round's players crowded out the door and stood waiting, Amaryllis and Berilac hand in hand, Doderic and Zinnia touching toes at the juncture of two contrasting wood floor tiles and giggling at each other, Merry aiming a quizzical look at Amber. "Are you hoping to win a kiss tonight? I don't think you've been trying very hard."

Amber smiled ruefully. "You've caught me out. The fun of the game is in the playing."

"With anyone?"

"With you it is," said Amber, and was glad to be called back into the green parlor before she had to define what she meant to do in the coming round of Hunt the Thimble By Northfarthing Kissing Rules. Merry was paying particular attention enough to Calla that if she wanted, she could have him for a kiss and more with no thimble at all. Would she want Amber to win instead?

Perhaps Amber would never see the button and wouldn't have to decide.

For tonight. 

As it happened, on her first look around the room Amber spotted a little circle of brighter silver amid the silver tea set on the sideboard. It seemed impossible that everyone playing the game, particularly Merry, wouldn't have seen it as well.

But no, Merry looked at the chair-tops, the chair-feet, the unoccupied chair-seats, and spent an uncomfortably long moment gazing intently at Calla, who sat beside Frodo and Mum. Calla held herself completely still and looked back with an impish grin.

Frodo sat perfectly still too and he also, inexplicably, spent that whole minute grinning like a loon.

Merry shook his head at them and turned away, which gave Amber a chance to saunter toward the far, tea-set, end of the sideboard while looking upward at the line of high shelves just below where the walls narrowed and curved over. Berry and Liss appeared to have abandoned the search for thimbles, buttons, or anything but each other, but they were watching the other players with interest.

Amber's ploy didn't work entirely, for Merry (and Doderic) followed her, but it was clear neither of them had the first idea where to look for himself. It occurred to Amber that if she won this round, she'd have to place the button for the next, and where could she put it that hadn't been used and wasn't obvious?

It didn't matter unless she won.

She turned and looked, as if searching intently, along the Aunt-Verbena's-plates end of the sideboard, craning as if she thought she saw something. She only needed time for two steps to put herself closer to the button than Merry, all unwitting, was now.

Doderic had followed her glance and was fooled into looking at the plates, which brought Zinnia over to them as well. Merry stayed where he was, looking here and there but he was too close not to be aware of Amber's movements.

Amber let her gaze fall to the floor, searching among chair- and table-legs, and suddenly widened her eyes — at nothing in particular, but at exactly the moment when Merry would see it.

Merry saw it. He looked away from her, but now it was down at the floor and away from the sideboard.

Amber took her two steps and scooped up the little round object from beside a fluted sugar-bowl. Was it the right button, or had she been plotting so carefully just to pick up a tea-ball?

She opened her hand. It was the button.

Amber looked up at Calla. "I've got it."

Calla, no longer posing or grinning, sent a quick glance at Amber, almost shy. Frodo raised an eyebrow.

"Bo— fiddlesticks!" said Merry. "Fiddle _bows_! Amber, you cozened me!"

Amber smiled. "I thought it was time to pay attention to the game."

Merry sighed and smote his forehead, showily, with the heel of one hand. "So I said myself. You've won the round. Go claim your kiss." He waggled his eyebrows. "I'll win the next one."

Amber tossed her head at him. "Promises." She turned to Calla. "Well? Can you do better than Merry will?"

Calla blinked at her and stood up. She was just enough shorter to fit perfectly into an embrace, and just buxom enough to be a comfortable armful. She smiled up at Amber and her lips parted. "There's only one thing Merry does better than I can," she said, sweetly and very softly, "and it's not this."

Her mouth on Amber's asked a question and promised an answer in warm, liquid motion with the taste of berries and nutmeg.

Amber pulled away reluctantly, hoping she'd answered the question to Calla's satisfaction. The room was warmer than it had been, and brighter... and it was her turn to hide a button in plain sight. Amber gave Calla a tiny nod, _later_ , and turned to take the button, only to see Frodo listening intently to something Mum was saying about her favorite subject of herb-gardens.

Amber recklessly put the button on the upper window-ledge behind the sideboard, in plain sight. Why not? The only person who still wanted to find it was Merry, and the sooner Merry found it, the sooner the game could be declared over for the evening.

The rounds continued with an ever-dwindling group of players: Merry kissed Amber with cousinly enthusiasm while Mum smiled; Doderic rather shyly kissed Merry; and Zinnia and Doderic kissed like tween sweethearts. Berilac declined to play a final round alone and no one was surprised when Amaryllis kissed him anyway.

"Thank you, Cousin Gladia," said Frodo, when the button had been retrieved for the last time and Mum presented Frodo with the much-traveled bit of metal and a final kiss to salute the evening. He glanced at Merry. "I think we'd all like to hunt a bite of supper, but I hope you'll excuse Merry and me, with Calla and Amber, to find it for ourselves."

# # #

Mum didn't have to know that the four of them merely visited the kitchen to take two more pies, since, as Merry said with a resigned nod at Calla's arm around Amber, they'd be eating them in at least two different rooms. 

"But _only_ two rooms," said Frodo, "may I hope?"

Merry leaned back against the same table Amber and Calla had worked on that morning and transferred the resigned look to Frodo. "Is this a prize for second-best?"

In the kitchen fireplace's light Frodo smiled at him, in way he certainly hadn't at Amber's Mum. "No."

Merry looked back, mouth pulled to one side for a moment, and suddenly nodded. "In that case we'll need a _big_ pie, won't we?" 

Calla gave a snort of laughter and an appreciative grin, but her hand closed over Amber's, a thumb caressing Amber's wrist before they pulled apart to let Amber pick up the berry pie she'd chosen. 

A few minutes later Merry and Frodo went down one branch of the smial toward the family bedrooms while Calla and Amber stood alone together in a small, warm nook between the family rooms and the tunnel that led to the guest bedrooms.

Amber slipped the arm not holding the pie around Calla's waist. This was no time to be coy. "What do you want to do?"

Calla turned neatly within her arm, pressed up against her, and picked the pie-plate out of her hand. "I think we could play a bit more at Hunt The Thimble. We won't need this until after." She set it down next to an empty vase on a tiny wall-table. 

"What, here?" Amber looked around the plain plaster walls and up at two tree-roots in the tunnel ceiling, but she was very aware of soft hobbit-lass pushing against her body from the bodice down.

"Under my skirt," said Calla, both arms around Amber now. "Or maybe like this." She leaned up and Amber felt her earlobe enveloped by moving, teasing, sucking wetness.

"Ah!" There was nothing like the shock of wanting, very much wanting, something you could have... if she could wait for it... soon. 

Calla exhaled gently on her ear. "I hope that means yes?"

"Now that you mention it," Amber took a careful breath, her hands on Calla's waist, "there's a thimble under my skirt, too."

"I like this one." Calla's mouth teased up and down her ear again.

"Not as much as you'll like, um." She could feel herself tingling and wet up between her legs already, and pushed her belly against Calla's rounder one. "... I can feel another thimble waiting for you to find it."

Instead of playing out the game by teasing her other ear, Calla looked directly up at her. "I wish I could."

Amber kissed her on the mouth, quick and sweet. "You can find it. I know you can."

"I wish I could feel it, and touch it and taste it. Right now."

Amber had to clench her thighs together to keep herself from making an unseemly display in Brandy Hall's guest-room corridor, and remembered that her room was joined to Mum's with an open doorway. "Now, yes. Do you have a room of your own?"

"Yes," breathed Calla. "Come with me, Northfarthing Lass, and we'll play your game." She stepped back, then leaned up to Amber's other ear, her breath warm and close, and whispered, "Bring the pie."

# # #

"Are all Brandybuck lasses so forward?" asked Amber, as the flickering light of Calla's bedroom lamp played over freckles-and-cream skin and her own pale-honey complexion together.

"I can't speak for all of them. There are at least half-a-dozen I haven't tumbled."

"You surprise me."

"I mean to," said Calla, hands questing over Amber's skin until it was established that Amber's breasts were just large enough to fit comfortably in them, with a finger and thumb left over for light little pinches and playful stroking. "Like this?"

"That's very nice... oh, ahh... but not surprising."

"Not?"

"Not in a lass with such lovely pink thimbles peeking up at me." There were indeed two rosy-pink nipples not unlike small, cushioned thimbles just within Amber's line of sight, not quite close enough to touch. They lifted a bit as Calla glanced up at her. "Let me try—" Amber maneuvered arms and elbows until she could cup Calla's creamy-soft breasts, feeling the nipples against her palms. "Ah, that's nice too."

"Feeling me, or me feeling you?"

"Feeling you against my hands. And your hands on me."

Calla gave a little, hissing sigh and a squirm. "You've found my thimbles. Some of them. Is it your turn for a prize?"

"I have a prize," said Amber, "here in my hands." She wriggled and repositioned herself, letting one hand slide downward, over curves and through a thicket that twitched encouragingly. "Right here?"

Calla gasped. "Close. Ah... very close."

"How close?" purred Amber, fingertips circling.

"You're at... the prize..." husked Calla. "Don't stop."

Amber settled herself around Calla, mouth poised at her ear-tip, one arm supporting her, the other sliding over and between lushly wet folds. "I'll stay here as long as you like," she whispered, not omitting to brush her lips over the smaller, prettily curved and pointed ear-folds around a tiny, sensitive passage.

Calla sighed again, one arm wrapped around Amber's, the other clenching a handful of mattress through the rumpled sheet in time with soft undulations of her legs and hips. Her motion built to a shudder and ebbed while Amber watched and heard the long, slow excitement of a lass at pleasure, feeling also the slow-burning excitement in herself of pleasuring a lass.

A warbling sigh signaled one episode of relaxation. "You like going on and on, do you?" asked Calla lazily.

"Shall I go further?" Amber let two wet fingers trail suggestively into a liquid wellspring and out again.

Calla huffed an exhausted, voiceless chuckle. She turned her head enough to catch Amber's mouth in a brief touch of a kiss and stretched her legs out, tight-closed around Amber's hand and then open again. "You're not tired of me?"

"Only if you are," Amber assured her.

"Do you know, I'm not tired. Not at all. You just do that... oh, yes, that... as long as you want."

"Oh, I will," breathed Amber into the springy curls above one ear, and felt a hot shiver of her own body where it cradled Calla's, her own wet trembling readiness centered under a sweetly round bottom that pushed into her lap. "I'll be here for a long, long time."

# # #

Mum had to have noticed that Amber arrived at her room only shortly before first breakfast, which she missed for sleeping. Mum didn't say anything, however, until second breakfast. "My dear it's very early, but am I to wish you a happy wedding day? And with whom?"

"Not yet," said Amber, feeling herself blush as she intently watched the stream of brown tea pour from spout to cup. "I'm not sure... quite what I should expect." 

She knew she wanted back into Calla's bed, but she couldn't be sure what Calla meant by her parting comment of, "I'll see you tomorrow, won't I?" and an immediate lapse into open-mouthed sleep. Brandybuck tweens were an irregular lot. Everyone knew that, even in Northfarthing, and in fact Amber herself had done her best to uphold the tradition. 

She said, "It might be bad luck to speak of it. It's still summer, and early." 

When second breakfast had been for the most part consumed, Calla came up to their table, one hand carrying a cheese-laden half-muffin with a bite out of it and one clasped firmly in Merry's. "We're going onto the south-tunnel roof where the clover grows those great big pink blossoms," she announced. "It would be a pity, Amber, if you didn't see those when they're at their best. Merry said so." 

Merry appropriated the muffin and took another bite from it, then glanced at Calla, and at Amber, and nodded while he swallowed. "Cousin Gladia, can you spare Amber today? Uncle Forradas wants clover for his herb brews. Tullio and Tilly and Doderic and Zinnia have gone ahead, and they'll find all the good patches of it if we don't hurry."

"Tullio Whitley, from Whitfurrows?" asked Mum. "Nettle Whitley's nephew? I knew Nettie when we were children..."

"Yes, he has an Aunt Nettle," said Calla. "Tullio and his sister are visiting today. He has a little business with the Master later, something about ponies." She gave Amber a hopeful look. 

"Oh, of course," said Mum. "Amber, I'm sure you'd like to help with the herbery. Perhaps I could meet the Whitleys at nuncheon or tea."

"Yes, Mum," said Amber, resigned to making the acquaintance of the largest land-owner in Whitfurrows over an herb-basket. And his sister. After all, it gave her the perfect excuse to compare Calla's complexion to pink and white clover blossoms, and possibly there would be an opportunity to suggest how far the comparison might be taken tonight. 

She lifted her gaze, with an effort, from the pink-freckled base of Calla's throat and met cinnamon eyes and a sly smile that seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. "I have an extra basket," said Calla. "Would you like to borrow it?" 

# # #

Not only Tullio and Tilly, but also Pippin Took (already attached at the basket-handle to Tilly) were roaming over the meadow above the south tunnels when Amber and Calla arrived, trailing Merry, who insisted on lending his sun-hat to Calla. 

"Thank you, Cousin," she said, demurely putting on the wide-brimmed straw hat with its jaunty band of Merry's favorite yellow. "I freckle so quickly that it's almost not worth the trouble of wearing a hat unless someone else brings me one." 

Amber made a note to bring a hat next time they went berrying. She never wore one, herself, but her mother would be glad to think she'd started to pay attention to her complexion. Mum had a straw hat that she never used with ribbons that were pink as Calla's mouth.

"Amber, we should try that patch next to the willows." A smile from that same pink mouth, as pink as other parts of Calla that Amber remembered with fondness, peeked at her from under Merry's hat-brim. "That end of the lawn has bees, but I'll protect you from them." 

"Where's Merry? Isn't he here to keep an eye on his hat?"

Calla smiled again. "He's watching Pippin watching Tilly and trying not to laugh. They're up there." She rolled her eyes at the long, grassy mound that was the top of one of the oldest Brandy Hall smial tunnels. 

They picked clover up the smial mound and across it, enough to fill their baskets, and when the baskets were full, they sat under the smial's roof-tree to cool off. A drop of sweat trickled down Calla's neck from behind one ear. 

Calla pulled off the wide hat and shook her damp curls. "Having bees isn't so bad when you remember that clover honey is wonderful stuff." Her bright eyes were direct. "Do you like it?"

"I like honey. I'm sure I'll like yours." Amber leaned closer, distracted by Calla's warm scent.

"Oh, my," said Calla, and they were kissing, leaning back against the tree-trunk for an embrace. Then Calla pitched Merry's hat onto the grass next to the clover baskets and pulled Amber into her lap, one hand slipping up her bodice to play with the edge of her shift. 

Somewhat later, it was Amber who wore the hat back to the Brandy Hall entrance. Merry took it back with a resigned sigh. "I love all my cousins too well to mind seeing two of them happy," he said. "Joy to you both. I won't tell Cousin Gladia if you don't." 

"I love all my cousins, too," said Amber, and gave him a merely cousinly kiss. "Thank you, Merry."

"For the hat?"

"Oh, yes, for the hat." They shared a smile.

# # #

The next morning's second breakfast had been for the most part consumed, when Frodo Baggins came over to the large table where Amber and her mother were sharing a stack of toast and toppings. He was wearing Merry's hat, and looking quite satisifed, but he claimed that he craved a serving of the buttered, fried mushrooms. "Good morning, Cousin Gladia. Amber, you look lovely this morning. These mushrooms are very fine. May I offer you a few on toast?"

"Please do," said Mum, and smiled upon Frodo, then glanced toward Amber, a question bright as sunrise on her face.

Amber, paused to accept the mushroom toast and then bestowed a languishing smile on Frodo. She hoped she wasn't overdoing it. "I'm quite ready for a bit more... breakfast. Would you sit with me for a few more... mushrooms?"

Cousin Frodo's eyebrows rose at her — oh, dear, she _was_ overdoing it — and then he chuckled. "You're as fair and fine at table as you are at play. However," he turned to speak to Mum, "I have a question about the cultivation of the asparagus beds you mentioned last night. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to show me in the garden here?"

"Of course I will."

"But later," Frodo said, as Amber poured out the last tea in the pot, dividing it between her cup and Frodo's.

Mum looked at them sitting side by side at the otherwise empty table. "I think Acacia wants me to help with her piece-work," she said hastily. "Good morning to you both."

Frodo stood while she got up and bowed her away with perfect gallantry, then turned back to Amber with a wary expression. "May I?" he nodded at the vacated chairs.

"Sit down, if you will," said Amber, "and tell me what all this is about. Is Mum embarrassing you?"

Frodo sat and took a sip of tea, then looked at her, equally direct. "I'm sure she hopes I'm courting you."

"It looked like she hoped you were courting _her_."

"Ah." He didn't look surprised enough. "If I had to choose, I'd prefer the daughter to the mother, I think."

"You're just being polite."

He looked around for the plate of toast and picked up the last piece, then broke it meticulously in half to divide between the two of them. "I am, I'm afraid. I'd like a favor of you, if it suits your plans."

Amber felt her eyebrows go up. "Do I have plans?"

"You did last night."

"Well..."

"She likes you," said Frodo. "Calla has her whims, but she hasn't been just playing at catching you."

The last few days had been all play — but of wonderfully matched players. Amber said, suddenly disconsolate, "I can't marry a lass, even if she'd have me."

"There you have it," said Frodo. "I can't in good conscience marry any lass, either. My heart's given elsewhere, you see."

Amber wished she knew him well enough to ask where and who. It might be Merry, she supposed. Frodo was more Took than Brandybuck by his looks, but there were moments when he and Merry shared a palpable understanding. "And the favor?"

"My aunts would be very glad to see me courting you. They and your mother would be satisfied to see the two of us dealing together in plain sight, wouldn't they?"

Amber frowned, testing the idea. "And perhaps they won't notice how much we deal apart?"

Frodo nodded, his face hopeful. "You could extend your stay at Brandy Hall. Your grandmother was half-Brandybuck, if I recall."

"My great-grandmother was."

He shrugged. "Cousin Esmerelda will put you to work with the rest of the family and be glad to have you. Mistress Gladia knows you'll meet all of Buckland's lads here eventually; she'll let you stay when she leaves. Maybe you'll stay forever. Or maybe the year."

Amber saw Calla come into the dining hall carrying a tray with a teapot and two plates of food. She looked around and headed for their table, smiling. Amber waved at her in welcome. "Maybe I will."

# # #


End file.
